May is a wonderful time to enjoy the garden! There are so many blooms and the greenery is fantastic. Here are some of the reasons I’m lovin’ my garden in May.

My purple alliums are blooming and the variegated iris are looking good.

My first bearded iris has just bloomed.

My Francis Williams hostas are looking good. Further back near the sidewalk the poppies are in bloom. If you look closely to the right you’ll see my tomato cages in front of the yews.

I have planted two kinds of tomatoes (Jet Star and Celebrity). I wrote the name Jet Star on a plastic spoon with a Sharpie, then I poked the handle into the ground in front of the tomato plant. (Its cheaper than buying those special labels they sell in garden catalogs and works just as well.) There are four plants in all in this bed. I have only labeled the Jet Stars so the one without a spoon is a Celebrity.

I bought this pot several years ago. It apparently wasn’t glazed properly because it has lost much of its green coloring, but I really like the shape and the rope design around it. I’ve tried various combinations of plants over the years. Last year we bought a pot of 3 crotons. They were gorgeous from the beginning all the way through the growing season. I liked them so well last year I decided to repeat it this year. There are only 2 crotons in the pot this time though. Guess its a sign of the economic situation. I paid a dollar more and got one less plant.

Looking down from the corner of my front porch I can enjoy the beauty and smell of the first bloom of my sunsprite roses.

Thanks to my husband, my efforts in the garden are displayed well because of his yard mowing and trimming efforts. Mine is not an easy yard to maintain. None of those big, fast, go-round riding mowers allowed here.

Looking to the right, my salvias have started to bloom. I love the thyme that grows in front of it and the “Lime Ricky” hucheras behind them.

Between the stepping stones my dianthis are starting to bloom.

I took this photo around 3:00 in the afternoon. It is a hot day and we are in need of rain. The hellebores are drooping and so is this red cabbage, a volunteer that came up from last year. I have planted 8 more red cabbages and 8 green cabbages. I like to tuck them in at the front of a sunny border. Their leaves are beautiful (and their heads are tasty).

This is the third year in this spot for my Nellie Moser clematis. I made my own trellis by attaching wire to the metal clothesline post. I sometimes wish I had a place to hang my clothes out to dry, but I’d rather have the flowerbed which runs the full length of the clothesline posts. Notice I have more tomato cages back here? One of them is a grape tomato. Love those!

I love these purple columbines. They don’t look like the ones I bought originally. I guess they were hybrids and they reverted to this when the new seeds came up. The really pale colored one in the middle is yet another change. I have cut the pale one and enjoyed it in a vase. I don’t want cross- pollination. I am trying to keep them purple.

Behind the columbines is an arch trellis. On both sides are Mrs. Cholmondeley (pronounce Chumley) clematis. The knock-out rose beside it is getting too big. It’s hiding some of the blooms. My husband wants me to cut back the rose. I honestly did not expect the rose to get that big.

On the other side of the gate, my Duchess of Edinburgh is just starting to open its first bloom. Behind it, my red Girard azalea is in full bloom.

Just off the back stoop is our patio. It is cracked and not exactly level, but I make the best of it any way I can. I really don’t have the money to have someone dig it all up, level it, and lay down pavers. So my project yesterday was to clean out the cracks, drop allyssum seeds into them, and cover them with a little bit of compost. I’ll have to wait to see if it works. Notice the tiny blue plants of the Firewitch dianthis in some of the cracks? I’m hoping to collect seeds this time. My plan is to help mother nature out by placing more dianthis more liberally in those cracks this fall.

When we first bought our home about 12 years ago, this area of the house was just a pile of old bricks and stone. I used them to build a narrow walkway and hosta haven.

I like hostas bunched close together. They hide the daffodil foliage until it dies back. I am trying to do more bunching to avoid more weeding.

I have several knock-out roses planted along part of my fence. All of them have lots of buds right now. These are the first to open.

Hope you enjoyed the tour. Come back again to see new photos as my garden grows.

4 Responses to My Garden on May 10th

Thanks! No need to envy, though. Some people make quilts, some people surf the web, some people cook….. I garden. It just is one of those more public hobbies. The blog allows me to show my successes, but the neighbors have seen some failures too. Appreciate you taking the time to comment.

nice to see pics of your garden since i haven’t made it down there to see in person. am glad you are happy working on your yard. i love lots of work left on mine but do love getting out there and trying to deal. take care!!

Your spring is well ahead of ours – we continue to get very cool days (45-50) and lots of rain. I’ve done some ‘puttering’ in the garden, but the soil is still very wet and the night temps are still in the mid 30s. I’ve got some Asian greens out there and a few cabbages and kohlrabi from starts – and some of my beloved beets (love those baby beets!) But I think they’d all like the temps to go up – I replanted my sugar snaps, and snow peas, and just today I noticed just a couple of green shoots rising up out of the ground. So there’s room for hope!

I love your landscaping – I know how much effort must go into that – but you are being rewarded – it’s beautiful.